Personal Finance And Momentum: Keep Moving Forward

The Ebb and Flow of Financial Life

I've been thinking about my financial life a lot more these past few months, and one thing I've been noticing is that there is an ebb and flow when it comes to positive changes, and negative backsliding. Things go in spurts.

For example, I recently read up on saving for retirement and decided that I was going to make some positive changes in that area. I set it up so that I was saving 15% of my income towards retirement, and I started reading up on how to make good investment choices. I gained some knowledge, applied it and made some positive changes. I was moving onward and upwards towards my goals.

And then we backslid. We recently set up a zero-based budget at our household, which in itself was a positive step. We stuck to it for a couple of months, and things seemed to be going pretty well. And then this past month instead of sticking to our budget we kind of just blew by it, allowing our spending to go back up in certain problem categories, and just thinking to ourselves, “hey, we'll do better next month”. So far this month, we haven't done better, but worse.

There Will Be Ups And Downs – Keep Your Eyes On The Prize

I've come to realize that when it comes to our financial lives, it isn't going to be all up or all down. Some days will be up, others will be down. The key is to keep in mind where you are, and where you want to go. As long as you're moving in a positive direction overall, you're doing better than most.

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On a daily basis try to take stock of where you are, what your problem areas are, and where you can improve. Set goals, and keep them in mind when you're having those down days. As long as you acknowledge when you're having a down day and resolve to fix it, you're well on your way to turning things around.

Have you noticed an ebb and flow in your personal financial life? Tell us about it in the comments!

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This is the hard part to all of this – when you start out you are excited and motivated and it’s relatively easy to follow the plan. After some time, it gets harder and harder to stay focused – it just gets tiring. The best technique I’ve come up with thus far is to automate as much as possible…so even when you’re not paying attention, the right stuff happens. That works for some things, like investing and paying bills, but won’t help with preventing me from going out and buying something and busting the budget. If you figure out a good and easy way to handle that – please let me know!

Believe me, I know the feeling. It seems as if every time I get myself back on track, the roommate does something stupid that blows my planning to smithereens. There are weeks when it feels like no matter how carefully I plan things I will never get ahead. But I try very hard to keep my eyes focused on where I want to be, and I’ve developed a decent network of friends for emotional support when it looks hopeless. And, while I’m not a Christian, I do believe that God doesn’t put us through things without having a purpose even though I might not understand that purpose, and that He never gives us more to carry than we are capable of. Small comfort sometimes, but very essential comfort at all times.

Oh for sure. I’m constantly setting goals, making promises, and moving in and out of the next big idea for our finances. Two things seem to stand the test of time though…1. my desire to live below my means, and 2. my automated retirement savings. No matter how much I screw up at the register or with my financial organization, my retirement will be funded at the same percentage every pay check and on time. I have comfort in that. Also, no matter how bad our spending gets, I still desire to be doing better. I think if I were to ever lose that desire I’d be in trouble.

Yes definitely, right now we’re in a low point I think. We’ve been spending a lot on things for the house since we bought it a year ago (recently put in a patio, got new kitchen cabinets and counter tops, light fixtures, etc.) But our last CC payment nearly cleaned out the bank account (usually there is plenty of buffer cash even after putting a boatload into savings, we don’t keep an actual budget but just watch what we spend, seems to work for us most of the time).

So now we’ve cut off the spending for everything except essentials. We can still work on the house though, there are quite a few projects waiting to be done that require little or no additional expense (painting, actually installing light fixtures, etc). So the plan is to stop spending until all of these remaining projects are completed (maybe 3-4 months from now) and build buffer cash back up in the checking account.

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